A return to coal? AI’s demand for gas turbines risks a new crisis: Bottlenecks Series

Zero: The Climate Race

Bloomberg

Technology, Business, Science

4.7 • 219 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rising power demand from data centers for artificial intelligence has led to a shortage of the gas turbines needed to generate electricity. This shortage might not seem the most obvious climate story, but it's having impacts across the entire energy sector. This week on Zero, Bloomberg’s Stephen Stapczynski joins Akshat Rathi to look at what’s causing the bottleneck in gas turbines, if the shortage will make companies look to renewables or coal, and whether natural gas is really a “bridge” fuel.

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Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Siobhan Wagner, Sommer Saadi and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Stephen Carroll.
0:02.0	And I'm Caroline Hepka here to introduce you to a podcast that brings you the news you need to start your day in just 15 minutes.
0:09.3	It's called Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Edition, covering all the top stories across Europe and around the world.
0:15.5	Each weekday morning, we're up early to bring you the latest news by 7am.
0:19.5	We've got everything you need to know from geopolitics
0:22.1	and global events to economics and what's moving markets. I'm covering it all from London.
0:27.6	And I'm in the EU's capital Brussels. We have 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world
0:32.1	to tell you what's happening, what it means and why it matters. It's more than just business
0:36.9	headlines, from the price of your
0:38.6	breakfast to global shifts in power. Economics and money aren't just part of the story. They're
0:43.4	often the driving force. So start your day with us on Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Edition for the
0:48.5	news you need to know and the context to make sense of it. Find new episodes of Bloomberg Daybreak
0:53.4	Europe edition by 7 a.m. London time on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:01.0	Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati. This week, gas turbines, a blessing or a curse.
1:19.6	Thank you. or a curse. For the last year at Bloomberg, I've been investigating bottlenecks to our clean, electrified future.
1:25.6	We've covered several different topics on zero,
1:28.3	from a lack of grid transformers
1:29.8	to the shortage of skilled workers.
1:32.2	Today, we are going to be talking about something
1:34.1	that might not have an immediately obvious climate benefit,
1:38.6	gas turbines.
1:40.0	Those spinning things that burn natural gas,
	...

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